Stabbings and Starbucks: Something in the Brew?

Today is the sentencing date for Jacob Lee Westin, a man who pleaded no contest to stabbing a Good Samaritan unlucky enough to step in between a quarreling Westin and Westin's girlfriend in front of a Glendora Starbucks. There's something that catches the eye whenever you read the juxtaposition of violent crime and the name Starbucks, but it does come up, especially, it seems, where knives are concerned. A few years ago, a student wrote a column in the University of Kansas paper gushing over the summer she'd spent in Washington, D.C., and how much she now loathed her smalltown prairie milieu.

"You can keep your mullets and pasture parties," the woman wrote. "I'll take my stabbings and Starbucks." She may have been on to something there. Of course, Starbucks coffee shops have become a gathering point for people in cities, and they provide an easy reference point in news sound bites. Still . . . Here is a list of knifings in and around Starbuckses.

April 9, 2007 Jeffrey Delgado found stabbed to death behind a Toronto Starbucks by a shop employee. Source: Toronto Star

April 5, 2007 A white supremacist is accused of stabbing a black couple behind a Palm Springs Starbucks. The Desert Hot Springs woman later admits to being an accessory after the fact. Source: Associated Press